Newsweek International articles from February 2007

Newsweek International archives from February 2007

Mail Call: The Decider in Iraq?(Letter to the editor)
February 5, 2007... Readers of our cover story "The Most Dangerous Man in Iraq" offered a more diplomatic view of Moqtada al-Sadr. "All the main Iraqi parties have their own militias, which are all as brutal as those of Sadr," one noted. Another agreed: "Sadr is...

China Finally Pays Off; The market has caught up to the booming economy, but will it last? Very likely.
February 5, 2007... Byline: Ruchir Sharma (Sharma is head of global emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.) Almost as if to make the point that the Chinese growth miracle won't be complete until every skeptic stands converted, policymakers...

Tehran Goes Latin; Washington now worries Iran is helping Hizbullah set up shop in Central and South America, but local governments are unimpressed by the claims.
February 5, 2007... Byline: Joseph Contreras When Iran's firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, chose to visit three Latin American capitals earlier this month, there's little doubt he meant his trip to irritate the Great Satan to the north. Sure enough,...

No Power to the People; Europe's leaders aim to revive the constitution, but this time without the potential embarrassment of another messy vote.
February 5, 2007... Byline: Andrew Moravcsik (Moravcsik directs the European Union Program at Princeton University.) Remember the European constitution? Once upon a time, it seemed the answer to the European Union's woes. Leaders promised a union that was...

The First Lady Steps Out; Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has asecret weapon: his wife. But is Japan really ready for her?(Akie Abe)(Cover story)
February 5, 2007... Byline: Christian Caryl and Akiko Kashiwagi The White House has boasted its share of charismatic First Ladies; think Eleanor Roosevelt or Jackie Kennedy. But Japan has never seen the like--at least before last September, when Shinzo Abe...

Race to the Moon.(Cover story)
February 5, 2007... Byline: Fred Guterl (With Anna Nemtsova and Owen Matthews in Moscow, Melinda Liu in Beijing, Tracy McNicholl in Paris and Sudip Mazumdar in Delhi) For a space hero, Sergey Krikalev is something of a grump. Krikalev holds the world's record...

An Intelligent Test? China's new antisatellite program makes sense--at least from Beijing's perspective. But it could turn out to be a dangerous mistake.
February 5, 2007... Byline: Michael O'Hanlon (O'Hanlon is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and coauthor of "Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security.") On one level, China's recent test of a new antisatellite weapon was a success: Beijing...

Remembering Kapuscinski; The Polish writer who explored distant lands always found just the right images, just the right observations to entrance readers everywhere.
February 5, 2007... Byline: Andrew Nagorski In 1966, at the height of the Nigerian Civil War, an unassuming Polish journalist by the name of Ryszard Kapuscinski set out on a seemingly insane journey. He left the relative safety of Lagos and drove straight...

Interview: It's a Source of Stress; Akie Abe talks about the stir over her style, her youth, her willingness to hold hands in public.(Interview)(Cover story)
February 5, 2007... Byline: Christian Caryl and Akiko Kashiwagi Since her husband became prime minister last September, Akie Abe--who at 44 is Japan's youngest First Lady ever--has quietly revolutionized her unofficial office with her charm, fashion flair,...

Redeemed By a Little Black Book; A Dutch filmmaker returns from self-exile.(Paul Verhoeven)
February 5, 2007... Byline: Esther Bintliff In 1985, Paul Verhoeven left his home in the Netherlands on bad terms. The 48-year-old director had sold 9 million Dutch cinema tickets and won plenty of acclaim, as well as an Academy Award nomination, for the...

How to Sell the Joke; Two photography shows make the humor pop.
February 5, 2007... Byline: Jennie Yabroff In a happy accident of geography, two shows in midtown Manhattan present work by three of the most iconic street photographers of the past century. Many photos are familiar, but considered as a group, the pictures...

Want to See a Movie? Just Look Up.(shot movies)(Brief article)
February 5, 2007... Byline: Jennie Yabrof Half a mile north of the graphic overload of Times Square, pedestrians have a reason to raise their weary eyes skyward again. "Sleepwalkers," a series of silent short films by the artist Doug Aitken, is a...

These Scions Are Pros; South Korea wrestles with a tough question: if the son has the chops, is it bad for him to take over as CEO?(chief executive officer)
February 5, 2007... Byline: B. J. Lee In early January, Samsung's Jay Lee made his public debut in flashy global style. Lee, the Harvard-educated son of Samsung's chairman Lee Kun Hee, showed up at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to work the crowd....

The Davos Disconnect; For a great number of major industrial nations the share of economic rewards going to labor stands at a historic low. This is not sustainable.
February 5, 2007... Byline: Stephen Roach (Roach is chief economist at Morgan Stanley.) This year's World Economic Forum was the most optimistic in years. Four years of booming global growth and surging financial markets put the attendees in a giddy mood. The...

The Good Life.(dutch paintings on exhibition)(plastic bags and its varieties)(new robots)
February 5, 2007... Byline: Brian Byrnes; Esther Bintliff; Jessica Bennett; Kenzie Burchell; Michelle Jana Chan Travel: South For the Harvest In recent years, Argentina and Chile have garnered bunches of praise for their signature grapes, Malbec and...

'The Need for Closure'; Our position is very clear. You need inclusion. You cannot just say, 'Hamas doesn't exist.'.(interview with Ahmed Nazif)(Interview)
February 5, 2007... Byline: Lally Weymouth Since he was appointed to lead a mainly technocratic government in 2004, Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif has been immersed in some of the Middle East's most complex political problems--the Israeli-Palestinian...

Perspectives.(Quotation)
February 5, 2007... Byline: Quotation sources: BBC, NY Times, BBC, NPR, Wall Street Journal "The situation in Iraq is dire. The way ahead will be very hard. But hard is not hopeless." Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the next U.S. commander in Iraq, speaking...

Periscope.(Bangladesh and its elections)(survey on employee replacement)(changing trends in television)(Survey)
February 5, 2007... Byline: Malcolm Beith; Mark Hosenball, Maziar Bahari and Joanna Chen; Ginanne Brownell; Barbie Nadeau; Jennie Yabroff; Tony Emerson; Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop Bangladesh: Rhymes With Afghanistan... For 16 years, Bangladesh has stood out...

Computers: Factory In a Kit.(printer by Cornell University )(Brief article)
February 5, 2007... Byline: Patrick Falby Homemade goods aren't usually made by machine, but soon they may be. Researchers at Cornell University have created a low-cost home-assembly device that can make three-dimensional objects. It hooks up to a PC, like a...

Mail Call: Ankara and the EU.(Letter to the editor)
February 12, 2007... "Who Lost Turkey?" drew readers' skepticism on Turks' joining the EU. "Strength is not a matter of numbers," one said, "but stems from common values and political, economic, ideological and social cohesion." Turkey's Troubled EU Bid ...

Turkey Eyes the Shia Crescent; Iran clearly seeks to lure Turkey away from its traditional moorings to the West, and the Kurds may be just the wedge it needs.
February 12, 2007... Byline: Omer Taspinar (Taspinar is a fellow at the Brookings Institutionin Washington.) If you were a mullah in Tehran facing a new western "coalition of the willing," there's one country you would try to get on your side: next-door NATO...

China Lets Loose; Foreign money is pouring into China, piling up by the billions. Now Beijing has set out to right the balance by freeing its people to take that money abroad.
February 12, 2007... Byline: Melinda Liu China's stock markets are smoking, and smart money is flooding into the country; last year foreign direct investment reached nearly $70 billion. Add to that a 2006 trade surplus of $177.5 billion, up 74 percent from the...

The D Word Is Back; Everyone thought it was a dying disease, but no. Deflation has returned; in fact, it never went away.
February 12, 2007... Byline: Christian Caryl They call it the "D Word." For more than a decade--ever since the bubble burst in the early 1990s, sending prices for basic goods and services plummeting--Japanese prime ministers have been dreaming of a day when...

The View From Venice; Even Titian was jealous of Tintoretto's talent.
February 12, 2007... Byline: Nina Scott Tintoretto was the last great painter of the Italian Renaissance, mastering the most advanced techniques of his day and then infusing them with his startling imagination. Yet it has been 70 years since he starred in an...

Beyond the Barricade; The Tate recreates an antiwar protest. But is it art?
February 12, 2007... Byline: Carla Power A sign posted beside tate Britain's Duveen Galleries warns: "State Britain contains images of human suffering which some visitors may find distressing." That's putting it mildly; the installation includes pictures of...

Laughing All the Way; An incisively irreverent history of the modern world.
February 12, 2007... Byline: Jeffrey Wasserstrom (Wasserstrom is a history professor at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of the forthcoming "China's Brave New World--And Other Tales for Global Times.") Larry Gonick, a polymath with a sense...

The $100 Un-PC; Rajesh Jain thinks the next billion computer users hold the key to the industry's next big innovation.(Cover story)
February 12, 2007... Byline: Jason Overdorf (With Jessica Bennett in New York) In a humble residential neighborhood in the south Indian city of Chennai, Hema Malini--a quiet 13-year-old girl whose hair was braided with jasmine flowers--switched on the family...

Raul Looks to the East; Fidel is still around, and officially in charge. But his brother Raul may be about to ditch Cuba's Soviet economics in favor of Beijing's free-market model.(Fidel Castro, Raul Castro)
February 12, 2007... Byline: Joseph Contreras After months out of the public eye, Fidel Castro was suddenly back last week, appearing on Cuban TV for a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo ChAvez. Though he's put on some weight since his last appearance, the...

Interview: The People's Laptop; MIT's Nicholas Negroponte wants kids all over the world to use his computer to jump-start learning.(MIT Media Lab)(Interview)
February 12, 2007... The green and white gizmo is not much bigger than a clutch purse, but when you extend its plastic bunny-ear antennas and flip it open, clamshell style, the screen is colorful and welcoming, ready to network or create. It's even got a video...

Remodeling the Churches; As European worship steadily declines, many grand old buildings have fallen into disuse. What should become of them?(Cover story)
February 12, 2007... Byline: William Underhill (With Tracy McNicoll in Paris and Katka Krosnar in Prague) For the muslims of Clitheroe, collective worship has never been easy. It's been 40 years since the first Asians settled in the little town close to...

Wait Till the NEXT One! Sure, Bill Gates is excited about Vista, but he's also already thrilled about future versions of Windows.(Interview)
February 12, 2007... Byline: Steven Levy On the morning that he launched the consumer version of the Vista operating system in New York City last week, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates spoke to NEWSWEEK about it--and he also talked about the version to come. ...

Kyoto Can Be Made to Work; 'Leapfrog' economies can bypass traditional industrialization. India, for example, leads the developing world in low-carbon wind power.
February 12, 2007... Byline: David Miliband (Miliband is a British Labour Party M.P. and secretary of State for Environment.) Climate change has become a "threshold issue." Deny the evidence, ignore the problem, and you look like a Luddite. The new report of...

What the U.N. Won't Tell You.(climate change)
February 12, 2007... Byline: Ross McKitrick (McKitrick is associate professor of economics at the University of Guelph.) Last Friday, the intergovernmental panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group charged with assessing the state of the world's...

The Last Word: George Clooney; The frustrated American.(Interview)
February 12, 2007... Byline: Ginanne Brownell George Clooney has played everything from a doctor to a CIA operative. But these days, the 45-year-old Oscar-winning actor (and Oscar-nominated director) is reveling in his role as an activist. Since first visiting...

Global Investor: Why Worry, Wall Street?
February 12, 2007... Byline: Jeffrey E. Garten (Garten is the Juan Trippe Professor of International Trade and Finance at the Yale School of Management, and a former managing director of Lehman Brothers and the Blackstone Group.) For several months, Treasury...

The Good Life.(Velentine's Day offers at hotels and resorts)(Hiro's Yakko San Miami restaurant)(Cologne Carnival)
February 12, 2007... Byline: Esther Bintliff; Jeanne Hilary; David Patrician; Bruce Jaffe; Lauren Mack; Linda Stern Travel: Period Valentines It is a truth universally acknowledged that the art of romance has dwindled in recent years. To put a little heat...

Perspectives.
February 12, 2007... Byline: QUOTATION SOURCES: Guardian, ABC News, New York Times, AP "A world is collapsing." French writer Philippe Delerm, in an editorial in Le Monde lamenting France's recent ban on smoking in public "I would suggest respectfully...

Periscope.(international news)
February 12, 2007... Byline: Mark Hosenball; Owen Matthews; Stephen Glain; Jonathan Mummolo The War: Iran's Meddling in Iraq How solid is evidence that Iran is stoking the conflict in Iraq? The White House has ratcheted up rhetorical attacks, suggesting...

Cell Phones: Pocket Projectors.
February 12, 2007... Byline: Benjamin Sutherland Viewing videos on postage-stamp-size mobile-phone displays can be an aggravating tease, but the imminent arrival of new laser technology, announced in January by two leading manufacturers, is set to change that...

Neuroscience: Risky Business.(research on risk taking behavior)(martian atmosphere)(Brief article)
February 12, 2007... Byline: Rupali Arora Should you invest in a risky start-up company? Should you accept that better-paying but less secure job? Should you abandon your failing marriage? How you answer depends on what kind of brain you have. Researchers...

Mail Call: Prince, Not Leader.(Letter to the editor)
February 19, 2007... Our year-end report on Rahul Gandhi led many readers to send in their own views on his ability as a future leader. One said, "A soft-spoken prince charming, he behaves like a foreign tourist." Wrote another, "It remains to be seen if he can...

China Above the Law; A poorly functioning legal system is supposed to hurt economic growth. But nobody told the Chinese.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Sarah Schafer On Feb. 2, a Communist Party journal published a speech by Luo Gan, a Politburo member and China's top law-and-order official, that startled the country's burgeoning legal profession and foreign investors. Luo...

Beijing's New Internationalism; As an increasingly powerful China involves itself with the world, its devotion to absolute sovereignty is starting to evolve.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Orville Schell (Schell is the incoming director of the Asia Society's new Center on U.S.-China Relations.) In many respects Hu Jintao's recent dash through africa--he traveled to eight countries in over a week, signing trade deals,...

Jakarta Drifts; Indonesia's president talks reform but is struggling to make good on his promises.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Joe Cochrane During his military career, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was known as "the thinking general" for his intellectual approach. One can only wonder what was going through his mind last week, when monsoons...

Time To Bust Up The Club; An obscure deal to sell off Berlin's Landesbank could herald revolutionary changes for German banking.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Stefan Theil On the face of it, he's a most unlikely free-marketeer. A card-carrying socialist, Thilo Sarrazin is Finance minister for the city of Berlin, whose government includes the successor party of the former East German...

Europe's Fallen Angels; The EU's newest economies may be headed for trouble.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Emily Flynn Vencat It's no secret that emerging markets have had an easy ride for the last few years, as the search for double-digit profit margins has pushed investors into riskier areas. Foreign direct investment in developing...

Tokyo Makes Waves; Japan's new national art center is slick, stunning and ecologically sound. And it doesn't even own a single painting.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Akiko Kashiwagi Visitors to Roppongi, Tokyo's posh entertainment district, come for a taste of the latest trends in fashion, food and fun. But increasingly, the tree-lined neighborhood is offering up opportunities for more-highbrow...

The Cinderella Plant; Africans used to think jatropha was a worthless bush. Now it may be an important new source of energy.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Karen Palmer Jatropha Circas is the Cinderella of the plant world. Throw a seed in the poorest soil on the planet, and up comes a bush that will likely last 50 years. During a drought, jatropha bushes simply drop their leaves and...

King of The Fans; Everyone is rooting for Gerard Butler in '300.'.(Berlin Film Festival)
February 19, 2007... Byline: Ginanne Brownell Gerry Butler is so popular in Japan that when he arrived in Tokyo in 2005, 2,000 swooning fans met him at the airport. Those are more screaming Japanese than have ever bothered to greet Tom Cruise--at least...

Making the Final Cut; By working with government censors, China's filmmakers are stretching the limits of acceptability.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop Li Yu's film "Lost In Beijing" traveled a hard road to this week's Berlin Film Festival, where it is competing for a Golden Bear. The director had to fully re-edit the work five times, making 53 changes and...

Cleaning Up Japan Inc. Three recent scandals show Tokyo's financial reforms are working.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Edward Lincoln (Lincoln is the director of the Center for Japan-U.S. Business and Economic Studies at NYU's Stern School of Business.) Early this month, the scandal at Nikko Cordial, a Japanese brokerage firm accused of misstating...

ChAvez Lives Castro's Dream.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Jorge Castaneda (Castaneda is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University.) Fidel Castro used his reappearance on TV late last month to show that his health has finally improved. But...

Fashionably Connected; The new Prada Phone isn't the first high-fashion mobile, but it shows how eager manufacturers have become for their next hit.
February 19, 2007... Byline: B.J. Lee and Barbie Nadeau (With Kenzie Burchell in London) Prada doesn't take cell phones lightly. Although the gadgets have long been considered fashion accessories, the Milan-based company, known for its clothes, handbags and...

Two Views Of London; Canaletto and Hogarth offer conflicting visions.(William Hogarth)
February 19, 2007... Byline: William Underhill The scene is a London park in the mid-18th century. Bewigged figures make formal conversation in the foreground. In the distance, a company of soldiers is drilling in perfect formation. A line of handsome,...

The Last Word: Alex Leong; Hong Kong's Quixote.(Interview)
February 19, 2007... Byline: Melinda Liu Hong Kong has an election coming up for its next Chief Executive on March 25. The choice won't go to the people, however; the only voters will be 800 bureaucrats and functionaries vetted by Beijing. Yet defying all...

Global Investor: Too Wealthy For Worries; Unless the lessons of history are irrelevant, it's a fantasy to think that markets can police themselves.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Jeffrey E. Garten (Garten is the Juan Trippe professor of international trade and finance at the Yale School of Management.) Emotions ran high at last week's meeting of G-7 finance ministers in Essen, Germany. Euro-zone officials...

Glittering Glamour.(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: Leela Parker Get ready to shine. Metallic fabrics are adding sparkle from head to toe, with shimmering dresses taking center stage. Understated is out; from casual sleeveless shifts and cocktail dresses to evening gowns, glitter is...

Hot Spot: Seven-One-Seven Hotel Amsterdam.(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: GINANNE BROWNELL This charming boutique hotel in the heart of the Dutch capital has mastered the details of understated elegance: letters of welcome include a summary of the next day's weather and Annick Goutal's sophisticated...

4 Hours In Singapore.(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOP The Lion City is shedding its boring image. It now has a thriving nightlife and arts scene, and even the dining options are getting better. VISIT the Asian Civilisations Museum, arguably the best museum...

Cuisine for Kids.(Rousillon, Villandry, Le Meurice )(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: ESTHER BINTLIFF French chef Alexis Gauthier is bringing haute cuisine to the high chair. The mini-gastronome seven-course menu at his Michelin-starred Rousillon in London features Jerusalem-artichoke soup with truffle ravioli and...

Year of The Pig.(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOP Just when you thought the gift-giving season was over, along comes Chinese New Year, a family celebration that promotes good luck for the lunar year starting Feb. 18. This year the boar takes center stage,...

Dream Home: Villa Venezio, Manalapan, Fla.
February 19, 2007... This three-story Italian Renaissance-style estate has handcrafted stone walls, ocean terraces and a grand pool--plus a private dock for the yacht ($27 million-$30 million; corcoran.com ).

Perspectives.
February 19, 2007... Byline: Quotation sources: Reuters, AP, UPI, New York Times, CNN "We're just saying no." United States Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, on the Democrats' decision to challenge President George W. Bush's troop-surge...

The Wobble Before the Fall.(petroleum prices)(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: Owen Matthews, Phil Gunson and Maziar Bahari The era of the oil populists is getting interesting. Oil states enjoyed dizzying visions of power when prices hit $78 last July, and the bonanza emboldened populists like Venezuela's Hugo...

Boycott Who?(consumers boycott Hyundai Motors in South Korea)(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: B. J. LEE South Korea has a tradition of protest, usually against the powers that be. This time the people turned on the people. In a nation known for its patriotism and a leveling instinct, consumers are boycotting Hyundai Motors...

Do It Online.(microcredit, Kiva.org )(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: JESSICA BENNETT Microfinancing for poor entrepreneurs is one of the hottest ideas for helping the developing world, particularly since its founding thinker, Muhammad Yunus, won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Global demand for...

The Debunker.(Google Earth)(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: JASON OVERDORF The Indian government is worried--again--that its sensitive locations will be at risk if Google Earth doesn't blur the images it depicts on its site. But that concern is much ado about nothing. "These [images]...

The Games Gap.(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: NICK SUMMERS If you can feel the excitement as the International Olympic Committee nears a July vote on the site of the 2014 Winter Games--well, you have a delicate enough touch to win gold in curling. After frenzied bidding for...

Time on The Mind.(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: JERRY ADLER How does the brain track time intervals? A new paper in the journal Neuron by Dean Buonomano of the UCLA Brain Research Institute proposed a theory that time is measured not like a clock, but by tracking changes in...

The Solution.(celebrating the anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday)(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: MARY CARMICHAEL The Problem: To celebrate the anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday, on Feb. 12, 1809, Bob Stephens, a retired scientist, is organizing more than 850 celebrations worldwide--parties with bearded impersonators,...

Reality Check.(binge eating)(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Hollywood celebs with anorexia or bulimia get the headlines. But a new study from Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital shows binge eating--eating beyond the "full" point at least twice a week--is more common than those two illnesses combined....

Spear Phishing.(internet fraud)
February 19, 2007... Byline: Benjamin Sutherland Phishing is a game of numbers. Fraudsters pump out thousands of e-mails that persuade some recipients to click a link to, say, a phoney financial institution's Web site, where they divulge bank and credit-card...

The Mini Fingers.(scientists dveloped a robotic hand one millimeter across)(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Byline: Rupali Arora To operate without too much cutting, surgeons have grown adept at using tiny tools much like tweezers and chopsticks. But these aren't adequate for many complicated procedures. Recently, researchers at the University...

The Technologist.(Washington State University's new meterial)(Brief article)
February 19, 2007... Being stiff is a good quality for golf clubs and tennis racquets. So it's good news for athletes that scientists at Washington State University announced recently in the journal Science a new material that is stiffer than diamond, one of the...

Mail Call: Royal for France?(Letter to the editor)
February 26, 2007... Readers of our year-end report on Segolene Royal were skeptical of her success. One doubted that she could overcome France's challenges: "Joblessness, poverty, homelessness and corruption are all up." Observed another, "substance is second to...

Time to Change Tacks on Iran.(Essay)
February 26, 2007... Byline: Ray Takeyh (Takeyh is a fellow at the New York Council on Foreign Relations. This essay is adapted from a forthcoming article in Foreign Affairs.) Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the United States has pursued a series of failed...

America's Unsinkable Fleet; Why the U.S. military is pouring forces into a remote West Pacific island.
February 26, 2007... Byline: Christian Caryl For an out-of-the-way spit of land in the West Pacific, Guam has been getting a lot of interesting visitors recently. First came a steady stream of Pentagon bureaucrats and senior U.S. military officers. Then, a few...

Now Comes the Hard Part.(Six Party Talks)
February 26, 2007... Byline: Michael J. Green (Green was special assistant to President George W. Bush for Asian affairs from 2004 to 2005. He now teaches at Georgetown University and is the Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.) ...

The Dawn of the Next Cold War.(Essay)
February 26, 2007... Byline: Ian Bremmer (BREMMER is president of EurAsia Group and author of "The J-Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall.") The 32-minute blast Vladimir Putin delivered at a recent security conference in Munich will go down...

An Even Closer Ally; An odd outburst from Howard highlights the uniquely pro-American mood of Australia.
February 26, 2007... Byline: Hugh White (Hugh White is a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute of International Policy in Sydney, and professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University.) Last weekend, Australia's Prime Minister John Howard...

The Third Man; Once again, Le Pen is poised to play the spoiler in France's elections.
February 26, 2007... Byline: Tracy McNicoll And Christopher Dickey Jean-Marie Le Pen laughed, and then laughed some more. The right-wing scourge of French politics, now 78, wouldn't say, exactly, whether he thought he'd be up against the Socialists' Segolene...

A Strike Too Many; Hyundai, South Korea's largest automaker, set out to copy nimble Japanese rivals. It's ended up looking more like the laggards in Detroit.
February 26, 2007... Byline: B.J. Lee Cheonju, South Korea, is thousands of miles away from Detroit. But the two cities have something in common: powerful labor unions. For nearly a year, the Korean automotive giant Hyundai has pushed to add a night shift at...

English Orated Here; To stop the flight of their best and brightest to the Ivy League, top Asian universities are moving to give many, even most, of their courses in English.
February 26, 2007... Byline: B.J. Lee Asia has long yearned to create its own Ivy League for the great mass of students who can't afford to make it to Harvard. Now it has found a shortcut. Two years ago Yonsei, South Korea's oldest and most prestigious private...

Scene Stealer; Renoir captured vibrant landscapes as well as people.
February 26, 2007... Byline: Ginanne Brownell Any casual observer of art knows that just as Claude Monet made his name painting ethereal, color-rich landscapes, his great friend and contemporary Pierre-Auguste Renoir excelled at the spirited depictions of...